Why Scotland simply must save the home of the world's largest slug

Temperate rainforests are an important habitat for many different species (Picture: Philip Formby/WTML) | PA

Cawker City, Kansas, is famously home to the ‘world’s largest ball of twine’, while Casey, Illinois, has many of the world’s largest things, including a 16.5-metre (54ft) wind chime, a 25m seesaw and 4.3m knitting needles. Scotland may not be able to compete with such tourist-attracting and very human achievements, but our flora and fauna is more than capable of holding its own.

For example, Scotland is home to the ash-black slug, considered to be the world’s largest slug, on land at least. Gardeners may wish to look away now, but it can apparently grow up to 25cm long (nearly a foot!). And, if the sight of such a creature was not enough of a spectacle, it also has a bizarre mating ritual in which the happy couple suspend themselves from a tree using sticky mucus.

The slug is one of 11 “weird and wonderful" lifeforms highlighted by the Woodland Trust as inhabitants of the temperate rainforests found in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. Once widespread, they are only just hanging on. For this glorious slug’s sake alone, we simply cannot lose them.